Helmut Gruner

Gruner (left) in the 1963 cup final

Helmut Gruner (born November 24, 1927 ) was a football player in the GDR upper league . In the top division of the East German Football Association, he played for SC activist Brieske-Senftenberg and for the company sports community (BSG) Motor Zwickau . He won the GDR soccer cup with Motor Zwickau in 1963 .

Athletic career

Gruner belongs to the first post-war generation of East German football players. When his later sports association Motor Zwickau became the first East German soccer champion in 1948 under the name SG Planitz , Gruner was 21 years old. He came to first division football late. The GDR Oberliga entered its sixth season when Gruner was accepted into the Oberliga lineup of the Brandenburg BSG activist Brieske-Senftenberg at the age of 26 . During the season, the soccer section of the BSG was transferred to the newly founded SC activist Brieske-Senftenberg. The Briesker had been one of the founding communities of the East German Oberliga in 1949 as BSG Franz Mehring Marga and remained first class until 1963. As a midfielder, Gruner played 22 of the 26 league point games in the 1954/55 season and scored five goals. The SC activist came 6th out of 14 teams.

The footballing path of Gruner in the following 18 months is unknown. At the beginning of the football season in 1957, which has now been adjusted to the calendar year, Gruner appears in the top division of the West Saxon BSG Motor Zwickau . The Zwickau team were also constantly represented in the league until now, but after winning the title in 1950 they increasingly lost their playing strength and in 1956 only reached 11th place. With Gruner, the team was able to stabilize again and achieved their best result in the league with fourth place in 1960 during his active time. On September 10, 1961, Gruner played his only GDR selection game. With the B national team, he was defeated in Miskolc by the Hungarian B representation with 0: 2. In 1962 he was part of the selection of the Karl-Marx-Stadt district , which won the district traveling cup of the GDR football association . Gruner's greatest success with the Zwickauers was winning the GDR soccer cup in 1963 . In the final on May 1, 1963, he was a right midfielder in the team of BSG Motor and defeated BSG Chemie Zeitz 3-0 with her . In 1963/64 Gruner, now 35 years old, played his last league season. After he had completed 22 point games in his regular position in the right midfield in the past season, he was only used eight times by the 10th matchday of the 1963/64 season. For Motor Zwickau, Gruner played a total of 1967 league games in which he scored 17 goals.

After the end of his career as a soccer player, Gruner worked from 1965 to 1974 as a trainer at BSG Motor Werdau . He led the team in 1969 and 1971 to the championship in the third-rate district league Karl-Marx-Stadt and rose with her in 1971 in the second-rate GDR league . In the first year of the GDR league, Motor Werdau was the season winner under Gruner's leadership, but failed in the promotion games to the league. With a fifth place in the GDR league after the 1973/74 season, Gruner ended his training activity in Werdau at the age of 46 .

literature

• Hanns Leske : Encyclopedia of GDR football . Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89533-556-3 , p. 176.
• Andreas Baingo, Michael Horn: The History of the GDR Oberliga. Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-89533-428-6 , pp. 301, 349.
• Uwe Nuttelmann (Ed.): GDR Oberliga. 1962-1991. Self-published, Jade 2007, ISBN 978-3-930814-33-6 .

Web links

• Helmut Gruner in the database of the German Football Association